The Martin’s Mill Mustangs are headed to the Class 2A Division 2 championship. (Brandon Ogden/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

CHINA SPRING — Greg Jenkins often says that defense travels.

He knows his Martin’s Mill Mustangs may not always have their best offensive performance, but he expects the defense to give them a chance every game.

Martin’s Mill held Goldthwaite to just nine points in the second half to pull away for a 67-33 victory in the Class 2A Division 2 semifinals on Tuesday night.

“We’ve been talking about how No. 23 (Luke Sanderson) was going to cook our butt for the last three days, and he cooked us in the second quarter,” Coach Jenkins said. “He’s absolutely cold-blooded. They run some good action for him, and he got loose. We lost him a couple of times. Our kids at halftime, trust me, they took a little butt chewing.

“But I was proud of them at halftime. The coaches made a couple of adjustments. In the second half, they scored nine points. They had seven until right there at the end. To me, that’s the only way you’re going to win this time of year is playing great defense.”

Top-ranked Martin’s Mill (35-1) will play in a state championship game for the first time since 2007. The Mustangs will face No. 2 Lipan (34-4) in the Class 2A Division 2 final at 5 p.m. Thursday at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

“I’m so happy for this group of kids,” Jenkins said. “They work and work. We coach them hard, and they accept it. Their parents allow us to coach them hard. The parents deserve as much credit for today. They started developing these kids in the third, fourth, fifth grade, long before I ever got to Martin’s Mill. I told our coaching staff, we’re just the benefit of what the parents and kids put in, and we’re just kind of trying to continue it a little bit.

“We are extremely blessed and very thankful that we’re able to play in the state championship.”

Martin’s Mill jumped out to a 17-8 lead to end the first quarter.

But the second quarter is when Luke Sanderson got going for the Eagles. After not scoring in the opening quarter, the freshman Sanderson hit three 3-pointers in the first 1:17 to cut the score to 19-17. After Martin’s Mill got the score to 23-19, Sanderson connected again to cut the score to 23-22 with 3:40 on the clock.

Jak Kinder responded with a triple for the Mustangs to spark a 9-2 run to end the half to give Martin’s Mill a 32-24 halftime advantage.

The run ended up being 15-0 and 22-2 overall as Goldthwaite went nearly four minutes without scoring in the third quarter until a Wilson Grebe free throw with 4:01 on the clock. Grebe also hit a triple in the final 1:20 of the third quarter as Martin’s Mill held a 51-28 lead going into the fourth.

A Landry Sanderson three with 4:35 remaining in the game was sandwiched into a 14-3 Martin’s Mill run in the fourth quarter.

The Eagles didn’t make a 2-point field goal in the second half and only had two 2-point makes all game — both by freshman Talen Gardner.

The Mustangs were solid defensively as a team with juniors Ryder Marsh and Travis Baber both being integral parts to the success on that end of the court. Marsh blocked five shots in the second half, and Baber finished the game with six steals.

“I had to be a stopper every time,” Marsh said. “We had to stop 23 from shooting and driving in the paint. Hats off to 23. He’s a good player.”

“We had a specific defensive gameplan,” Baber said. “We executed that for the most part, not so much in the second quarter, but we got back to it and had a good run in the second half.”

Archer Schneider had 19 points and six rebounds for the Mustangs. March finished with 18 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks. Kinder had 16 points. Sawyer Moore and Baber each scored 4 points, and Cooper Wright, Jack Milligan and Briar Russell all added 2 points. Baber also had six assists and his six steals.

Luke Sanderson led Goldthwaite with 14 points — all in the second quarter. Gardner had 9. Grebe scored 4. Landry Sanderson and Aidyn Lee both scored 3 points. Of Goldthwaite’s 33 points, 30 were scored by freshman with the other three coming from the sophomore Lee.